


Metabolism

by agnosticnun



Category: Shadow Unit
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-30 15:10:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18317795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agnosticnun/pseuds/agnosticnun
Summary: The WTF's nutritionist on call comes up with a new way to find gammas. Emotions ensue.





	Metabolism

Stephen had approved of the idea, which perhaps explained why it had only come to pass after he had ceased to be head of the ACTF. Amrita was glad sometimes that she didn't belong to the secretive little group that he had sculpted within the confines of the FBI's BAU, and was only an intermittent part of the parallel alternate universe that had grown up around Idlewood.  
  
She accepted the secrecy because the alternative was not being involved at all. Which wasn't much of an option, once you knew that nightmares could come out into the light, and then keep coming. Being scrutinized by genuine paranoids who also had people after them came with the territory.  
  
Her little pamphlet,  _A guide to causes of unexplained weight loss_ , described Gates Syndrome, the newly described, rare metabolic disorder of unknown origin she was supposedly investigating. Nikki Lau had worked with her on the language.  _May be accompanied by delusions and other psychiatric symptoms_  was the best they'd been able to come up with to both include and mask any anomalous presentation, along with  _increased physical strength_ and  _weight loss that persists despite normal or excessive caloric intake_  and  _onset may be triggered by experience of trauma_. She'd spent some time on the list of conditions to be excluded - camouflage, she'd called it, but professional pride and a certain glee belied the description. Her _Guide_ would save lives. The  _anomaly_  would save lives, because the financial resources of the Justice Department would be getting her pamphlet into tiny health clinics staffed by underpaid workers and telling them how to distinguish Addison's and atypical thyroid presentations from stomach cancers and parasites and all the other less common, occasionally deadly things she'd listed.  
  
When the first message came in to the email address she'd set up especially for the purpose, she was on it, like (she dismissed the thought with silent apologies) a beta on donuts.  
  
Two weeks and several dozen messages later, and fallout from her pamphlet had become routine. Apparently, some people could not be trained to recognize even an utterly typical thyroid dysfunction, while others thought it a good use of time to email her asking if they should test for the common exclusions before making a diagnosis. She'd made a referral for one patient who turned out to have a fast growing tumor, and was waiting for further tests on another case - a young woman - that didn't seem to be anomalous, and didn't seem to be anything else, either. When the GatesSyndrome@ mailbox dinged, she bounced over and clicked , hoping to see the results she'd requested. The unfamiliar from: address was a disappointment, and she paused a moment to reconsider the feasibility of getting a secretary clearance to screen these things.  
  
Another moment had her wondering if this was somehow, improbably, a joke. The words "gamma" and "Hafhida wouldn't?" skittered through her mind, then out again - too obvious. This - if it was real, it was blatant. She paused, shaking her head, then deliberately rose, crossed the office and fixed herself a coffee with quick efficient movements. She sipped, grimaced at the sweet burned taste, and turned back to her computer.  
  
A nurse writing about her son, the weight that just kept dropping away. A sweet, normal boy who'd been having delusions - she'd seized that explanation gratefully, desperately, just as they'd meant her to - about killing people with his mind. She'd spent three lines fretting about her grocery bills. Her husband had died a few months before, and money was tight. The message was an overwrought jumble of medical history and irrelevant details, but she didn't say how her husband had died.  
  
Amrita turned to the web, swallowing excitement. But the hospital was real, and the nurse, and the husband - oh. She stared a moment, processing possibilities, then reached for her cell and dialed Esther.  
  
"I think I have something... yes, check your email. I'd guess you may want Frost for this one, I'm sending a news story I found... Let me know what happens." The conversation had been short and weirdly normal, but Amrita couldn't mistake Esther's sudden intent focus, or the underlying weariness. The ACTF's gamma-hunting machinery was moving into gear. For Esther, maybe it was a normal sort of conversation.  
  
Amrita had set it moving. She'd written a pamphlet, forwarded an email, and now some of the best and most dedicated people she knew were going to get on a plane and fly into danger. She'd talked about saving lives, getting to gammas in time to help them, but she knew what usually happened on gamma hunts. A mother had asked Amrita to help her son, and if the skinny boy was the only one who died, that would be a  _good_ result.  
  
She'd wanted to be involved.  
  
_I'm sorry. I didn't understand. Not really._  
  
This time, when she picked up her phone, she dialed Stephen. 

**Author's Note:**

> I originally shared this on Livejournal and posted about it on the SU forums back in 2013.


End file.
